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To
many people, graduate student research is a little-known corridor in the halls
of higher education. To some it is perceived as a mysterious side nook in the
ivory tower, where esoteric research is conducted for obscure ends.

On
March 14, a delegation of 20 graduate students and deans traveled to Sacramento
to give lawmakers a very different perspective: that of graduate student research
as central not only to the future of the University of California, but to that
of the state and the nation as well.

“All
of the research ever brought by UC was enabled by graduate students,” UCLA Dean
of Graduate Education Robin Garrell said. “They bring the fresh perspective,
the hard work, the new ideas. They have an incredible influence on shaping the
direction of research.

“Just
today,” Garrell related, “my department is filing a patent on a device for
enabling reactions with very small particles that was the idea of one of my
graduate students.”

In a
series of face-to-face meetings, graduate students from each UC campus sat down
with lawmakers to give them a better sense of the work they do — and why it is
of vital importance to California and its residents.

They
recounted their work on imaging that can detect very early stage cancer, designing
smarter systems for managing infrastructure, maintaining the safety of
prescription drugs in the era of Internet pharmacies and looking at how climate
change affects animal and plant life in California. They shared research that
could expand our understanding of how human languages are structured, how media
shapes our worldview and the way we use reading and writing of literature to
construct an understanding of ourselves. (See the slideshow above for a look at
the research of the 20 UC graduate students who traveled to Sacramento.)

Part
of the goal of the day, UC organizers said, was to show legislators the direct
economic benefit of graduate student research. Graduate students also are a key
factor in attracting and retaining top-quality faculty at UC; and eventually
will fill faculty ranks at both UC and CSU.

But,
as UC Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies Steven Beckwith noted, graduate
education serves an even greater function in training individuals with the
ability to think, uncover, question and problem-solve. These attributes are critical
to today’s complex economy and society.

“There’s a misperception that all graduate
students are being trained to be professors,” Beckwith said. In fact, the
skills honed by graduate students have the broadest possible applications.

“The
problems you will be charged with solving are not problems we are seeing now.
They are not problems we know about. They are things we haven’t even seen
before,” Beckwith directed to the students. “What you bring is the capacity to
wade into brand new territory equipped with only your curiosity, your
intelligence and your ability to solve problems. That is the talent the world
will need. And it is talent that, thanks to the strength of our graduate
students, UC will be well-poised to provide.”

Prying open the black box

“Graduate
students’ charge is to find questions worth answering,” said Kim Barrett, dean
of graduate studies at UC San Diego. “And they are often questions directly
relevant to real-world problems — problems like earthquakes, energy and
addressing the cultural and social issues of the state.”

One
of those students is UCSF biological chemist Michael Lopez, who is studying the
basic workings of cells to understand how they use chemical signals to
communicate and receive messages. “The excitement is in looking at this total
black box that you think you could never understand, and finding a way to
actually understand it, or at least some of it.”

The
first in his family to go to college, let alone pursue a graduate degree from
one of the world’s top research universities, Lopez did not at first see
himself as a career scientist — in fact, far from it. A mediocre student in
middle and high school, Lopez joined the Marines after high school. He thought
he might become a mechanic after completing active service, until a book on DNA
sparked his interest, and he enrolled in Fresno Community College to study
chemistry.

He
became a dedicated student and ultimately transferred to UC Berkeley before
going on to UCSF to pursue his Ph.D. in biological chemistry.

“My
ability to do this was completely dependent upon having cheap, publically-funded
education available to me at every step,” Lopez told lawmakers. “In any other
state, my story could not have happened.”

It
is this brilliance, passion and curiosity that enable graduate researchers to
slog through the 99-percent-perspiration that is the requisite for breakthrough
discovery.

“A
lot of research is just about bearing down and plugging forward,” said UC Berkeley
doctoral student Iris Tien, who is using advanced probability modeling and
information mapping to help civil engineers make smarter decisions about
managing infrastructure. “There’s something that I have a hunch might be the
answer, so I keep pushing forward and maybe in six months I’ll find it.”

Some
students’ work focused on solving specific problems, such as that of Shelley Rohde, who studies applied mathematics at UC Merced. She is
developing a mathematic model physicians can use to interpret light-scatter
imaging and detect very early stage cancer.

For
other researchers, the goal is more nuanced. “The real quest for me is not
finding one answer, but being able to incorporate a whole diversity of
experiences and possibilities, and to help my students to think critically in a
way that encompasses those broad perspectives as well,” said UC Santa Barbara graduate
student Lindsay Palmer, a former broadcast journalist who now is studying the
way media shapes and perpetuates certain preconceived notions.

Troubling trends

Graduate
students occupy a unique place in higher education, progressing from scholars
of what’s already learned to become creators of new knowledge themselves. “They
are getting deep training in a discipline at the same time that they’re pushing
forward the boundaries of knowledge about that discipline,” said Andrew Szeri, UC
Berkeley graduate division dean. “They come up with ways to combine things and
approach things. They stretch you in ways you couldn’t even imagine.”

They
are also a key part of what attracts and keeps UC’s world-class faculty. A
survey recently done at Berkeley found that the ability to attract high-quality
graduate students outranked every other factor in recruiting and retaining
faculty, including pay.

But
leaders in graduate education see troubling trends. While the number of
graduate students in the country has grown, the federal and state research
dollars to fund their research has stayed flat, meaning there is less funding
available per researcher. Dwindling state funds threaten to reduce the number
of teaching assistant positions graduate students rely on to fund their studies.

As
the funds to cover graduate studies become more pinched, the cost of the
tuition they need to cover is rising. It’s a double whammy that university
leaders say threatens to erode the strength of UC’s top-rated graduate enterprise.

Spreading the ‘wow factor’

Giving
lawmakers the chance to meet with graduate students gives them a whole new
perspective on the importance of their role, said UC legislative advocate Kate
Daby-Horpedahl.

“I greatly appreciate hearing directly from the students who are currently immersed in graduate work,” said state Sen. Jean Fuller (R-Bakersfield), whose staffers met with the UC Merced delegation. “It is only through these first-hand accounts that legislators and their staffs can be reminded of the importance of these programs and what their continued investment means to the state.”

In
a meeting with a delegation from UCLA, State Sen. Ed Hernandez, chair of the
Senate Health Committee, echoed Fuller's admiration and support for the work the
students were doing. But while affirming his support for UC, Hernandez conceded, “My hands are tied.” If ballot initiatives
to raise tax revenue — intended to help fund public higher education — don’t
pass, “I won’t like taking those votes [to cut funds], but we have to. The
solvency of the state is paramount.”

Participants
said the goal of the day was met in giving lawmakers a broader sense of
graduate students and what they bring to the table.

“I’d
like them to understand the really exceptional base that we have here in
California in our UC graduate students,” said UCLA’s Dean Garrell. “They are
already the knowledge producers, inventors and creators — and we expect even
greater things to come.”